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Initial Thoughts:

The marketing assignments were an effective way to use the content and tools learnt through our lovely professor’s lectures and the textbook content. The video project was the first time in university I’ve had to make a video. Luckily I came into the course with 4 years of experience in multimedia so I was able to do a decent job in filming and editing!

More Thoughts:

I do find that the idea of a video project has merit in teaching skills that will likely be used in some way in marketing as well as making the project more interactive and creative. However, I do think that the weakness in this assignment is that it is not fair for students that get a group and they are just naturally not as good with technology and thus lose points in creativity or even content due to the a lower quality video. My group had troubles meeting up and did not realize my desperation in telling them we needed to film weeks ahead of time as they did not have experience in film, thus I had to stay up pretty much every night editing and making changes the last week… I would have dreaded the hours necessary to finish this project as a group if I had no experience beforehand in production. That said, I did appreciate being able to do this late night rather than have to sacrifice time I didn’t have in the day due to work and school to meet up and prepare for a presentation.

Marketing Class Thoughts and Reflection On My Year Thus Far:

Through this school year I have made mistakes and I’ve pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I have joined new associations that have and will change me and left old ones that no longer do. I have reached lower lows and realized my potential for higher highs. But one thing is for sure that I seem to have directly realized…I am not fit for accounting! Likely I will be pursuing and doing more research in fields such as Marketing for consideration of my option choice as I have realized marketing comes easier to me, it is more engaging, and I have been able to discuss well with marketing students and those working in the field with interest as opposed to my desperate attempts to balance my journal entries in financial accounting.

Disclaimer: *We have not been able to receive our peer feedback so this blog has been written before the deadline without that part in this post.

The recent Arcade Fire and Google marketing campaign uses a strategy that they called “open source experimentation,” which uses the demand for Arcade Fire’s new track and album, “Reflektor” by engaging the user through interactivity using their mobile device throughout the video. Google employees are known to be a big fan of AF and as their new album has been recently released, the timing of their marketing partnership was perfectly planned out.

What I love about marketing is that the sky is the limit in terms of potential. Aside from Google being a big name corporation, they do a good job in maintaining the brand image and the perspective of unique and tech-savviness in their marketing; from the small things like changing the Google graphic on the homepage to above-the-line promotions. The same can be said for AF as their differentiation comes from their art and indie-induced consumer perspective. According to the Globe and Mail, much of the idea of this campaign was established by the band itself, which is why the genuine vibe and the uniqueness is still very evident. I think some of the most effective ways of promotional marketing has been through partnerships; it brings in a bigger loyal customer base, draws in a bigger reach in attention, expands the associations of the product, and in this case is able to combine the perks of technology with music.

Although market research would show that the common citizen in North America is likely to listen to ‘popular music’ or what is classified as the Top-40s, the fact that Google associated themselves with a personal preference rather than one that adheres to the public shows their genuine personality even as a large scale business.

Earlier this term we discussed the Vancouver-based social enterprise, Save on Meats founded by entrepreneur Mark Brand. I was surprised that Social Enterprise was the second biggest sector in terms of GDP and hat BC is known as one of the biggest areas for this type of business. Most students agreed it was a great business venture for the City of Vancouver as it hired, trained, and gave many less well-off individuals in Vancouver a sense of belonging and the ability to work out of poverty.

According to reviews from urbanspoon and yelp!, the general consensus is that SoM is a decently priced business that induces happiness in customers due to the fact that they know they are supporting a Vancouver-based company that was both subsidized by the government that also helps the city. This marketing strategy is good but the reality is that people also agreed that the food wasn’t too unique or didn’t differentiate itself too well.

Due to some humanitarian work that my family, school, and church has been involved in, social enterprise really hit me as something I could do passionately once I developed the skills and assets as it utilizes word-of-mouth promotional marketing and CSR.

Sources:

http://www.urbanspoon.com/r/14/181589/restaurant/Gastown/Save-On-Meats-Vancouver

http://www.yelp.ca/biz/save-on-meats-vancouver

http://www.saveonmeats.ca

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